Preface
First and foremost I want to warn that the subject matter of this post may be disturbing to some. Mods, if I unintentionally break any rules with this post please let me know and I will be happy to edit around your feedback. Once again, this topic can sometimes be difficult to discuss without coming off as callous and my intention is not to make light or question the legitimacy of those who struggle with suicidal ideation.
To quote Bo Burnham:
I sound unempathetic
I sound mean and rude
Suicide is an epidemic
And I don't want to be misconstrued
If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK) or go to SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources for a list of additional resources.
The Death of Gustavo Arnal
Ok, so with all that said I'd like to have a very frank discussion about the death of Gustavo Arnal, the former CFO of Bed Bath and Beyond. As most of you know, the former CFO of Bed Bath and Beyond died after falling from the "Jenga Building" located at 56 Leonard St, New York, NY on September 2nd, 2022. His death was immediately reported by many major news outlets as a suicide, which (rightly so) raised a lot of eyebrows on this sub. Some examples of this immediate reporting (in the NY Post's case, less than a full day after his death was confirmed) are listed below.
People Magazine: "Gustavo Arnal dies by Suicide"
Business Insider: "His death was ruled a suicide"
New York Post: "CFO Gustavo Arnal was stressed out by working 18-hour days and was considering taking a leave in the weeks before he killed himself"
Fox 5 NY: "CFO Gustavo Arnal faced $1.2B lawsuit before suicide"
If I had the time I would break down each of these articles individually, but since I do have a job I'm just going to dive into the CNBC one. Let's look into the content of this article and analyze exactly what the author is trying to say.
CNBC
"Bed Bath & Beyond CFO Gustavo Arnal died by suicide, medical examiner says"
"The New York City medical examiner’s office said Sunday night the executive died from multiple blunt trauma and that he had taken his own life. Arnal left no note behind and did not say anything to his wife, who was home at the time, sources told WNBC."
So the article says that all the medical examiner was able to do was deduce that blunt trauma led to his death. But, why would a medical examiner immediately rule this as a suicide without any further investigation? Surely there must be even a shadow of a doubt that a suicide occurred, especially because he left no note and didn't mention anything to his loved ones, and (as mentioned further down in the same article):
"Last month, he sold more than 55,000 shares at prices ranging from $20 per share to $29.95 per share, for a total $1.23 million, according to a filing. Those sales were made as part of a trading plan he had signed in April. The document also noted he still held 255,396 shares after those latest sales."
So, he still had 255k shares in the company. Realistically, leaving those 255k shares on the table makes no sense, especially if this is an ongoing issue that he had been dealing with over the previous months. Someone who is working 18 hour days does not do so without a reason, and someone who has over $5m (at the time) in shares and still doesn't sell them holds onto them for a reason.
But even more interesting is how CNBC deceptively uses positive news about the company and spins it to be negative news, and thereby implies that the faux-negative news is SO negative that it drove the CFO to suicide.
"Arnal died two days after the company announced plans to close 150 stores of its “lower producing” namesake stores."
"The cost-cutting measures come as Bed Bath’s core business continues to struggle. "
So, cutting costs to reach break-even cashflow is now... negative? 🤔 Also, they mention a case against Arnal and Cohen that was almost immediately dismissed, a lawsuit which had the very suspicious timing of 2 weeks before his death:
"Bed Bath also faces a class action lawsuit recently filed in the District of Columbia, accusing it of misrepresenting its value and profitability. Arnal is named in the suit, as is Cohen."
Why even include this nothing-burger in this article? Hundreds of thousands of these bullshit lawsuits are filed against people of this magnitude every year, why on earth would Arnal care about something that obviously wouldn't ever go to trial? THE WHOLE THING STINKS.
Keeping the suicide narrative active for no reason
There's a common thread of reporting here: "the CFO of Bed Bath and Beyond died by suicide." But what's more interesting to me is the attempts to correlate the suicide narrative with negative sentiment about BBBY as a company. There are 2 potential reasons why the authors of these articles are attempting this correlation, either to attempt to analyze why Gustavo committed suicide or to push a narrative that BBBY underperforming is the reason for his death.
As you can probably tell, I believe that the attempts to correlate the CFO's death with BBBY having financial issues is a red herring. BBBY has been underperforming as a company for many years now, why would the CFO feel hopeless about the company's future on the brink of the biggest turnaround of the company's history? However, I could forgive this speculation from the media if they didn't keep pushing the death of the CFO as a major talking point against the company.
The most interesting part of all of this is that THE MEDIA CAN'T STOP TALKING ABOUT GUSTAVO'S DEATH.
Here's an example of what I mean, a screenshot from a Market Talk News Wire from earlier this week:
\"Its CFO committed suicide in September,\" a completely unnecessary and callous statement from a professional news wire.
Let's break down this article. First and foremost they present genuinely negative information about the company. But they end the article with "Its CFO committed suicide in September," a completely unnecessary and callous statement from a professional news wire. Then there's the kicker, they spin news that is genuinely positive as negative: "Much of its senior leadership has left the company, including its CEO."
The leadership that "left" was in fact OUSTED by Ryan Cohen and crew in an attempt to turn the company around, and anyone who has been paying attention to BBBY over the past 2 years could tell you that the former CEO (who was the one who actually placed the Gustavo Arnal in the CFO position by the way) was at best incompetent and at worst a corporate saboteur whose primary goal was to destroy BBBY from the inside.
There is no spoon
Let's make one thing perfectly clear, no one in the media is 100% sure what happened to Gustavo. The medical coroner said that his death was due to blunt force trauma, and made an inference that his death was a suicide. However they keep reporting it like there is no doubt whatsoever that it was a suicide. This sets off my bullshit meter, and frankly it brings to light other questions that I won't speculate on here. But one has to wonder... why does this whole situation seem so "off?"
Those who are short Bed Bath and Beyond have a lot of money and power, and they won't go down without fighting.